Beamdog [Official Site] have officially announced their next revamp of a classic with Neverwinter Nights Enhanced Edition. I have it confirmed it will be on Linux too.
See Also: My interview with Beamdog earlier this year.
Their official press details sent out to me clearly listed Linux as a release platform, as expected, since their previous revamps are also on Linux. Really great to see another classic get a refresh, but not only that, to see it get proper official Linux support.
For those that don't remember, Neverwinter Nights did actually have a Linux version, although it wasn't well supported, so it's fantastic that we get it properly this time.
With that out of the way, here's the trailer:
Direct Link
From the press email I woke up to today:
We are incredibly proud of the work the team has done so far on Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition, and with the community’s feedback, we will continue fixing bugs and adding features for launch. We’ve added an improved display that looks great on modern 4k monitors, UI elements now adjust in size based on chosen resolution, and post-processing effects make for crisper, cleaner visuals. Save games, modules, and mods from the original Neverwinter Nights work in the Enhanced Edition.
Here's what it will include:
- Improved Display: Your portrait, combat bar, inventory, and other UI elements adjust in size based on your chosen resolution including 1080p and 4k.
- Advanced Graphics Options: Pixel shaders and post-processing effects make for crisper, cleaner visuals. Enable contrast, vibrance, and depth of field options as preferred.
- Community Endorsed: Original developers have teamed with key members of the Neverwinter Nights community to curate important fan-requested improvements to support players, storytellers, and modders.
- Backwards Compatibility: Works with save games, modules, and mods from the original Neverwinter Nights. A galaxy of community created content awaits.
They will be doing a livestream later today at 8PM UTC on their official Twitch channel, where they will give out more info. The official site will be up here, likely once the livestream is over.
Beamdog said that pre-orders will go live today and the game will cost $19.99, it should also get a Steam page later today too. On top of that, Beamdog will be selecting players from the pre-order pool for their "Head Start program" to "play, import modules, and update persistent world servers early".
They will also be doing a Digital Deluxe bundle, which will include Pirates of the Sword Coast, Infinite Dungeons, and Wyvern Crown of Cormyr), two soundtracks collecting all of the original music, and a new portrait pack. Each DLC will also be sold separately for those that don't want it all.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
abelthorne Nov 22, 2017
Quoting: DMJCThe NWN sourcecode does exist last I heard. I'd like them to fix the videos and actually recompile the engine. The sad truth of NWN2 is that they cancelled the Linux port when they chose to make an Xbox port of the game, which was then later cancelled. The engine hasn't had Linux support since then. There won't be a NWN2 Linux release.Didn't they upgrade the engine for the Baldur's Gate games and Planescape Torment for the EE in order to have Linux support? I guess the original versions were Direct3D only and didn't have an OpenGL renderer? If so, would there be more work to do for a Linux port of NWN2?
slaapliedje Nov 23, 2017
Quoting: abelthorneQuoting: slaapliedjeI'm really curious about the editor too, otherwise the game ran great on Linux. Though they did have some weirdness with the Bink video player, but once you converted the videos to mpg or other standard video format, it worked well enough.A bit off topic but do you have more infos on this? I'm currently reinstalling the game and while I've found a hack to play the bik movies, it would be better if I could use a better format. I assume the game would look only for the bik movies, do I simply convert them and it'll play whatever is in the dir as long as the file name without the extension is correct? do I have to "cheat" and rename mpg files to .bik? or is there another hack needed to play the videos in a different format?
Sorry for the late response, does look like others answered with nwmovies (which is good, because I had completely forgotten about that!)
slaapliedje Nov 23, 2017
Quoting: abelthorneQuoting: DMJCThe NWN sourcecode does exist last I heard. I'd like them to fix the videos and actually recompile the engine. The sad truth of NWN2 is that they cancelled the Linux port when they chose to make an Xbox port of the game, which was then later cancelled. The engine hasn't had Linux support since then. There won't be a NWN2 Linux release.Didn't they upgrade the engine for the Baldur's Gate games and Planescape Torment for the EE in order to have Linux support? I guess the original versions were Direct3D only and didn't have an OpenGL renderer? If so, would there be more work to do for a Linux port of NWN2?
Completely different engine for NWN. Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape were all created with the Infinity Engine. NWN was made with the Aurora Engine, which was also used for The Witcher. It was an updated Aurora engine for NWN2 in which they dropped OpenGL in favor of DirectX. Which didn't make any sense to me at the time, since there was no DirectX in the original engine, so they must have had to re-write a whole lot of it. I also seem to recall that the editor for NWN2 was re-written in .Net, but it could be the original was written in .Net as well.
Quoting: slaapliedjebut it could be the original was written in .Net as well.
No, Borland C++Builder.
slaapliedje Nov 23, 2017
Quoting: DrMcCoyQuoting: slaapliedjebut it could be the original was written in .Net as well.
No, Borland C++Builder.
Ah, yeah it's been so long... I just remember that nwedit hadn't gotten any updates in a very long time.
I wonder if they'll be able to get Infinite Dungeons working again. That was kind of fun, though it seems to me that Sword Coast Legends did that same thing, not sure if better or worse.
Someone further up asked for a refresh of the UI. OH PLEASE DON'T! NWN had the BEST UI for this type of game and it irritated me that the second one changed it.
Pie menus are fantastic!
Luke_Nukem Nov 23, 2017
The game does come with the standard Bink files. And there's still no Bink support in the Linux client at all, so movies still don't play. That's a bit disappointing.
Audio mixing is weird/buggy now, too, with NPC voices not heard unless I start pulseaudio. And area background music isn't heard, with or without pulseaudio.
rustybroomhandle Nov 23, 2017
Quoting: DrMcCoyWell, I did preorder NWN:EE, and have access to the "headstart" (beta) version now.
Does this also mean you will soon have a whole new set of data files to test xoreos with?
Quoting: mcphailQuoting: Mountain ManI've had Neverwinter Nights installed on my system for over a decade. I remember the installation process for Linux was a bit convoluted requiring you to manually copy some files from the CD, but it always ran well. I haven't played the game in years, though. I wonder if it will still run on my current distro? Now I'm curious.
Yep. I followed some links on GOG and got it working on Ubuntu 16.04 a few weeks ago.
Is there way to use script without building goddamn DEB package? In my case it produced 5 GB deb file, which is just plainly insane.
Last edited by Kuromi on 23 November 2017 at 5:25 pm UTC
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